Hopkinsville Goblins, Ben Hansen, Deer Tracks, and the Weird Little Threads That Refuse to Stay Separate

Tall Shadow Figures in the Pennsylvania Woods

Reports of tall shadow figures have appeared in folklore, paranormal investigations, and witness accounts for decades. In this interview, investigators from Podcast of the Paranormal discuss years of encounters in a remote Pennsylvania woodland involving strange lights, antler entities, unexplained sounds, ritual activity, and a presence that seemed to interact with visitors in unsettling ways.

In this episode, Heather Woodward speaks with investigators from Podcast of the Paranormal about a series of encounters in a wooded area in Northeastern Pennsylvania that they have been investigating for several years.

The guests explain how they originally became involved in paranormal investigation, starting with team investigations in college and later returning to the field shortly before the pandemic. Their renewed interest led them to form their own team, with their first investigation taking place in a wooded location tied to local urban legends.

They describe the area as heavily forested, remote, and historically associated with reports of a woman in white, rumors of witchcraft and ritual activity, and a nearby hospital or asylum that burned down. The site is also located near moving water and is accessed by walking a significant distance away from visible roads or lights.

During early visits, they began observing unexplained lights in the woods. These lights appeared in multiple colors, did not behave like lightning bugs, and seemed to increase in activity depending on the emotional state of the investigators. Over time, they noticed the lights became dimmer after nearby construction work altered the flow of a stream.

The investigators describe performing ritual work at the site to attempt direct communication with whatever presence might be there. They report that the communication was brief and conveyed that it was time for them to leave. After this initial interaction, the presence did not visually manifest again, though the investigators continued returning to the site regularly and leaving offerings.

They recount a specific night in April following a full moon when multiple people were present. After walking family members back to their vehicles, the remaining investigators stayed near their cars. At that point, they began hearing movement in the woods and observed a large shadow cross the road. Shortly afterward, something charged toward them from the woods, producing heavy footsteps and animal-like sounds.

They describe encountering a large, black shadow figure estimated to be seven to eight feet tall with prominent antlers. The witnesses perceived the figure differently, with one describing it as upright and humanoid and another describing it as moving on all fours. When flashlights were directed toward it, the figure disappeared immediately. All witnesses reported feeling that the encounter was a clear signal to leave the area.

Since that night, the investigators report consistently feeling watched and sensing a boundary when visiting the location at night. They describe additional Estes sessions that referenced doorways, instructions to enter the water, and requests involving offerings and penance.

They note environmental patterns associated with the site, including moving water, underground mines, alterations to the land, and disappearing rocks previously used as seating or altars. They report that offerings left at the site appeared to be acknowledged through changes in the environment, including arrangements that mirrored the number of people present.

The conversation expands to include broader patterns observed by Heather Woodward across similar locations, including the presence of converging waterways, underground disturbances, traumatic histories, and proximity to nuclear power plants. The guests confirm that their site feeds into the Susquehanna River and is located within proximity to a nuclear facility.

They also discuss a specific instance where an Estes session instructed them to return on November 5th, coinciding with election night. The group describes widespread feelings of unease and disorientation on that date, as well as inconsistencies in intuitive and tarot-based predictions.

Additional corroborating experiences are discussed, including childhood encounters with shadow figures in cemeteries, later confirmed by other witnesses, and accounts from other investigators who independently reported similar sightings in the same Pennsylvania location.

Throughout the episode, the guests emphasize that they still do not know what the entity or phenomenon is. They acknowledge similarities to folklore, cryptid reports, and nature spirit traditions but do not settle on a definitive explanation. They continue to visit the site regularly, perform investigations, and leave offerings while remaining cautious about further contact.

Encounters with tall shadow figures appear in reports from all over the world. If you’re interested in recurring paranormal patterns, you may also enjoy my article on Gates of Hell Cemetery and the strange entities reported at one of Oklahoma’s haunted locations.

The Alison Hartman ET Experience

The Alison Hartman ET experience began when she was just five years old. What started with a childhood encounter outside her bedroom window would become a lifelong pattern of UFO sightings, unusual entities, and experiences she still struggles to explain.

Alison Hartman is a lifelong ET experiencer from Greenbriar, Arkansas. She’s 42 now, and her first encounter happened when she was five years old. She woke up in the middle of the night, walked back into her bedroom, and noticed the curtains were open. Outside the window, sitting on a desk on the front porch, was a grey alien. Thin, wrinkled, large black eyes. Just sitting there, looking at her.

She didn’t scream. Not because she wasn’t scared, but because she didn’t want to wake her siblings and get in trouble. So she just stood there, staring back. Then she went to bed and looked out the second window. In the backyard was a small saucer-shaped craft, about the size of a van, with blinking red, yellow, green, and white lights. It was sitting on tripod-like legs. She closed the curtain, got into bed, and went to sleep.

The next morning, she was excited. Not traumatised. Excited. She ran around telling everyone what she saw, like it was the coolest thing that had ever happened to her. Her siblings remember it. Her parents don’t. Not long after, something else started showing up.

She would go into the bathroom just to get space from her family, and a glowing green, cartoon-like dog would appear out of nowhere. Floating. With rings around its neck and tail. She named it Bernard. It didn’t talk. It didn’t interact much. It just showed up. And she had the sense it was connected to the same “them.” Like it was checking on her, she told her mom once and got brushed off as having an imaginary friend, so she stopped talking about it.

After that, things went quiet. For decades, there have been no major, vivid experiences. Just interest in the paranormal, typical curiosity, nothing that stood out. Then around late 2020 into 2021, everything came back. Hard. She started having in-person nighttime visits. Not vague impressions. Physical presence in the room. Enough that she started journaling because there were too many to keep track of.

She estimates at least a dozen in-person encounters since then, along with a much larger number of astral interactions and dream contact. She says she can tell the difference between a dream, an out-of-body experience, and something actually in the room. Some of the encounters involved what she describes as medical procedures. Some felt targeted and specific to her. One of the most significant events happened in January 2022.

She was under intense stress at the time, working 70 to 80 hours a week in a high-pressure banking job. One night, after waking up to let her cat out, she lay back down and tried to calm herself with meditation. Halfway through, she felt the air in the room change.

She opened her eyes and saw a being on the other side of the bed, reaching over her husband toward her. She recognised it immediately as non-human. Instead of fear, she felt calm. Curious.

She touched its hand. Then stood up. Another being appeared behind her. Taller. Same general appearance. They took her hands and began moving through the house. At one point, a screen appeared in front of her showing data, including what she interpreted as her frequency. Then they lifted her upward through the ceiling. Her vision went completely black, but she could still hear the environment around her.

When her vision returned, she was in a space that didn’t resemble anything physical. A vast black environment with people sitting in a circle, aware of her presence. Then another room. This one more structured. Green-toned. People standing in rows, rigid, almost vibrating. She was placed in a circle with them.

One of the beings kept pointing to a man nearby and repeatedly asked her if she remembered him. She didn’t. She guessed. Said maybe she knew him from work. Immediately after that, she was back in her bed. What hit her wasn’t fear. It was the feeling that she failed something. Only 45 minutes had passed. That same day, after years with the company, she quit her job. No notice. Walked away from a 20-year career.

Months later, through a chain of coincidences, she saw a documentary and recognised the man from that experience. She reached out to him. He confirmed he had missing time the same day. They spoke, stayed loosely in contact, but never fully understood why they were connected. He later died of pancreatic cancer.

In 2024, Alison had a near-death experience due to pulmonary embolisms. During that experience, she felt his presence again, along with a sense of clarity about everything that had happened. That their meeting mattered. That there was a larger arc she was part of.

Since then, she’s shifted her life. Focused on writing, her podcast, and her work. Her experiences didn’t stop. They continued. She describes ongoing encounters involving different types of beings, though most resemble variations of the “grey” archetype.

Some involve what she interprets as energetic upgrades, especially before travelling to high-energy locations. Others feel more clinical, including procedures involving her body. She’s had experiences that suggest reproductive involvement, which she connects to what others describe as hybridisation programs.

She also has what she believes is an implant near her ear, visible on an X-ray, along with recurring ear ringing and body vibrations that often precede encounters.

In one experience, she was taken outside to two crafts. One tic-tac shaped, one more rectangular. Inside, she saw what looked like a mix of beings and human-like individuals working together. She overheard a discussion about needing to revert to an older method for extracting metal, which led her to believe they were replacing or adjusting an implant.

She woke up with intense ear pain but no physical evidence beyond that. Across all of this, what stands out is her reaction. She isn’t panicked. She isn’t trying to fight it. She questions it. Pushes back at times. Sets boundaries when she can. But overall, there’s a level of acceptance.

She sees it less as random events and more as an ongoing interaction. Something structured. Something that’s been there her whole life, even when it went quiet. She also believes experiences like hers have increased since 2021. That more people are opening up, becoming receptive, or being approached.

Not because something new arrived. But because something that was always there is finally being noticed.

Stories like Alison’s raise larger questions about the nature of contact experiences and high strangeness. For another perspective on these recurring patterns, explore my article on the Ozark Mountain UFO Conference and the unusual conversations happening at the edges of UFO research.

The Legend of Gates of Hell Cemetery

Some places earn their reputation. Gates of Hell Cemetery in Oklahoma is one of them. For decades, locals have shared stories of strange rituals, shadow figures, unexplained encounters, and a landscape that seems to carry its own unsettling energy. In this interview, paranormal investigator Jason Walker shares his experiences with one of Oklahoma’s haunted locations.

Some places don’t just get haunted. They get scared. They get used. They get fed, over and over, until the land develops its own appetite.

When I sat down with Jason Walker, I wasn’t expecting the usual campfire stories. Jason’s been in this long enough to know the difference between a cheap scare and something that alters your nervous system. And the things he’s seen in southern Oklahoma sit in that category people whisper about but never really unpack.

He’s a seasoned investigator, an author whose novel The Gates of Hell and the Demons That Protect It is based on true events, and a guy who’s seen enough to understand that most hauntings are just personality carryovers. Assholes in life stay assholes in death. Not everything is a demon. Not everything is a portal. But every now and then, something is.

Jason grew up hearing about a family cemetery along a river locals have called “The Gates of Hell” since before he was born. Not in a cheesy, urban-legend way. More in that “everyone knows what happens out there, but nobody says it out loud” kind of way.

In the seventies, the place was a magnet for satanic ritual groups. There was a giant burnt-out pit in the middle of the cemetery, actual 13-foot metal gates that looked like something from a medieval fever dream, and a stretch of treeline leading toward where people claimed there was a hidden church deep in the woods. A church that only appears when it wants to.

As a kid, Jason watched a group of robed figures cross the field toward the cemetery carrying torches. Black robes, no faces. His mother screamed, threw him in the car, and peeled out. That memory stayed with him.

Years later, he went back as a teenager. Of course he did. Curiosity always wins.

He and two friends crossed through the cemetery into the open field and headed for the woods. The place was already weird with trenches in the field, old land scars, the river moving in the dark, and the deeper they walked, the heavier it felt.

Their first scare was a possum. The kind of jump scare that makes you laugh after you realize your body prepared for war.

The second scare wasn’t funny.

Jason’s flashlight caught a pair of glowing yellow eyes low to the ground. Then those eyes rose. Higher. Higher. Until whatever that thing was stood around 13 feet tall. The eyes were three feet apart. Massive. Darker than the dark surrounding it.

Then two more stood up beside it. Three of them. All huge. All silent. There was no body visible, just height and presence. Jason wasn’t thinking Bigfoot at that moment. He wasn’t thinking anything except: nothing in these woods is that tall.

Then one of them made a noise — a deep, impossible sound that shook all three of their bones. The other two flanked them in the trees. Surrounded. Predator-logic, not haunting-logic.

The three of them ran for their lives, branches tearing their faces, stumbling through trenches, every primal alarm going off. Jason kept checking behind him, making sure the other two were ahead while he covered the rear. Whatever those things were, they were closing in on both sides.

By the time they reached the cemetery again, one was already standing inside it, watching them leave. Just watching. They got in the car and escaped. Barely. Jason has never forgotten the feeling. It wasn’t a ghost. It wasn’t a typical cryptid. It wasn’t demonic because they were allowed to leave. Whatever it was had orders. Territory. Purpose.

So What Lived in That Forest? Jason leans toward a hybrid answer. Maybe Bigfoot-like. Maybe demonic-adjacent.
Maybe guardians of an old ritual site. Maybe something that once had form and no longer needs it. Maybe a creature tied to the land long before humans showed up. Whatever they were, they weren’t random.

They let him leave. They wanted him gone. They wanted to protect whatever was deeper in those woods.

And the land around them holds all the ingredients for high strangeness: moving water, heavy history, ritual scars, electrical infrastructure, and an old story locals still whisper.

Haunted cemeteries are only one piece of the paranormal puzzle. If you’re interested in locations where folklore, history, and unexplained experiences collide, you may also enjoy my article on Rush, Arkansas and the stories that still linger around one of the Ozarks’ most famous ghost towns.